The Challenge of Teaching LMA

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by Laurie Cameron

It is always a challenge to create a syllabus for Laban Movement Analysis.  At Pomona College, my goal is to cover the theoretical bases of LMA while encouraging embodiment of the material through regular practice of the Bartenieff Fundamentals and creative explorations that lead students to an understanding of the material within their own physical capabilities.  This has to happen in two one-hour and 15 minute sessions per week for 14 weeks.

Meaning in Motion has become an anchor for my course.  … Read More

LMA and the “Vaccination Theory” of Education

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In the Vaccination Theory of Education, students are led to believe that once they have “had” a subject, they are immune to it and need not take it again.

Though Postman and Weingartner proposed the vaccination theory in 1969 as a criticism of educational practices, it is hardly a dated critique.  Courses in higher education and professional training are still arranged as seemingly finite subjects.  Laban Movement Analysis is no exception.

Certainly there is more to movement analysis than can be gleaned in a one-semester course. … Read More

Meaning in Motion at Lesley University

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by Nancy Beardall

At Lesley University we use Carol-Lynne Moore’s book, Meaning in Motion: Introducing Laban Movement Analysis in both our Dance Movement Therapy masters program and the Laban/Bartenieff Certificate program housed at Lesley. Students are introduced to and read the primary source material written by Laban, Bartenieff, Dell, Lamb, North, etc., however, students appreciate the concise and clear text as presented in Meaning in Motion. Moore’s guidebook was one I was pleased to offer students as many of them are learning the material for the first time.… Read More

Embodied Decision Making

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In my discussion of Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA) at the public lecture session in Montreal, I aimed to demonstrate how knowledge from the field of dance became relevant and valued in the business world.

After introducing the creators of MPA – Rudolf Laban, F.C. Lawrence, and Warren Lamb – I explained that body movement is different from body language.  Body language is based on interpreting gestures and fixed positions such as “crossed arms indicate rejection.”  In MPA, the meaning is in the movement.… Read More

Applications of Movement Analysis

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The Montreal event included a full morning of various presentations on applications of movement analysis for the public.  The formal lectures, delivered in French or English with simultaneous translation, covered a fascinating array of disciplines and approaches, both qualitative and quantitative.

Brigitte LaChance, a Canadian physical therapist, discussed what Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) contributes to her rehabilitative work with seriously injured clients.  Odile Cazes, a French psychometrician, described how she applies Functional Analysis of the Dancing Body (AFCDM) in training osteopaths in hands-on techniques. … Read More

Observing Movement from Two Perspectives

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The June gathering in Montreal of American, Canadian, and French movement analysts provided many opportunities for moving, observing, and talking together.  This was a daunting enterprise, for not only were participants navigating between two systems of movement analysis but also two languages – English and French.

To facilitate this exchange, there was a full day of movement workshops based on the themes of flow, weight, and relationship to space.  On the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) side, Kathie and Pat Debenham, Cate Deicher, Tricia Bauman, and Martha Eddy led sessions respectively exploring weight and flow, combinations of weight and flow, space effort, vision and fluid systems. … Read More

Comparing Movement Analysis Practices

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As one of 12 Laban Movement Analysts who participated in a 2014 research project comparing our observations with those of 12 experts in the French system of Functional Analysis of the Dancing Body (AFCMD), I was keen to hear the preliminary results of the study.

The presentation of the project by co-researchers Nicole Harbonnier-Topin, Genevieve Dussault, and Catherine Ferri at the Montreal conference in early June did not disappoint.  Here is a brief report on their findings.

The study focused on making explicit the “tacit knowledge” employed by expert movement analysts.   … Read More

Reflections on Decoding Choreutics

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Choreutics has always been my favorite book by Rudolf Laban.  Since first reading parts of it as an undergraduate, it has inspired and mystified me by its occasional and seemingly abrupt shifts between systematic description and cosmic speculation.  Laban hints at a deeper significance in human movement, but how he gets from A to B is elusive, thought-provoking, and exciting.

My most recent re-reading was occasioned by leading a correspondence course on Choreutics, accompanied by  21 curious and acute readers.  I have not dispelled all mysteries as the result of this experience, but I have come to terms with what Laban was attempting to do. … Read More

Diagonal Corridors of Action

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For many years, I have been puzzled by Laban’s emphasis on the cubic diagonals.  He has embedded these oblique internal lines, which connect opposite corners of the cube, in his theories of both space and effort.

Spatially, diagonals represent the most mobilizing lines of motion, the slanted trajectories that lead to flying and falling. In addition, the cubic diagonals serve as axes for all the most familiar Choreutic sequences:  the Primary and A and B Scales.  The girdle, the axis scales, the polar triangles, and transverse 3-rings are all situated alongside or around these oblique lines, forming a variety of movement shapes encompassing an empty corridor of action.… Read More

Choreutics – The Whole Enchilada

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Like many movement analysts, I’ve always thought that choreutics was synonymous with space harmony.  But now I see that choreutics is not just about space.  For Laban, choreutics is the whole enchilada.  It is body, effort, shape, and space – movement as an integration of the physical, psychological, and spiritual.

I will be incorporating this new perspective in the forthcoming Octa workshop, Bringing Choreutics to Life.  The focus will still be on space, but with the aim of using body, effort, and shape to experience more fully the patterned trace-forms that Laban identified as a beneficial physical practice.… Read More